There are a lot of interesting observations about the nature of the crowd:

Brett Kinstler, owner of the Beach Paradise sundries shop right next door to 3 Brothers, said Memorial Day weekend only "brings the influx of riff raff."

"You come here any other weekend in July or August and you’ll never see what we saw last night," he said.

I'd agree with that. Early in the season the bennies behave like zoo animals let out of a cage. They calm down a bit over the summer for whatever reason.

And then there's this:

"I wouldn’t let my children come here if I had any," said Jim Murphy, who works the games at an arcade. "Thousands of kids come here on vacation and so many of them leave here on probation. That family atmosphere is not what it used to be."

I have to disagree with that. The family atmosphere was never what it used to be. For as long as I worked on the boardwalk in the '60s and '70s I was hearing that sort of thing. But the mid '60s crowds were if anything more violent than today's. The predecessors of the guidos were much more prone to get into fights than the current iteration.

In fact my friend Luke from Bayville had an older brother who once got in a fight with what were then called the "Nicky Newark" types. The locals were standing outside a bar later that evening when the guys they beat up drove by and took some shots at them. It was an early example of the drive-by.

The funniest thing was what happened after Woodstock. The former hoodlums all grew their hair long and started smoking pot. They no longer got into fights, but they drove the town fathers even crazier. The mayor and council wanted to kick all the hippies out of town.

At the time I was working the boardwalk games, and I couldn't help but notice that nine-tenths of my customers were longhaired kids. So I'm not sure that was a great business model.

In any event, if you want to stay out of trouble in Seaside, let me give you this piece of advice: